During downhole drilling operations, various bearing assemblies are used to provide support to portions of the drill string or to other components, and to provide thrust or asymmetrical moments to the drill string to orient or maintain the orientation of the drill bit.
It is a common problem in the art for various components secured within these assemblies to slip or rotate undesirably as the drill string and mud motor rotate, mitigating the effectiveness of the bearing assembly and requiring frequent removal and repair or replacement of the assembly, causing expensive downtime during drilling operations.
Typically, bearing assembly components are secured within a circular housing set screws, various types of locking pins and rings, keys and keyways, clamps, press fits, shrink fits, adhesives, shapes, splines, and similar locking means. These conventional securing measures create highly stressed areas within the assembly, known as stress risers, which are prone to increase wear and risk of damage and failure of the assembly during use.
Further, conventional securing measures typically require special shaping of the bearing assembly and installed components, which increases manufacturing costs.
Additionally, conventional securing methods often require precisely machined components, resulting in high manufacturing and installation costs, and a limited ability to remove, replace, or secure the components under high torque loads.
In many situations, conventional securing members, such as locking pins, keys, and set screws, experience heavy wear, can fail during use, and can require frequent repair or replacement. Conventional securing methods can also increase the wear and reduce the life expectancy of the bearing assembly housing and components. Additionally, conventional securing means are often unable to adequately secure components under adverse or high torque situations.
A need exists for an improved method for securing components along a rotatable tubular shaft using compression to create frictional forces between adjacent objects that exceed the torque expected to act on the shaft, without requiring conventional securing members, thereby reducing or eliminating the stressed areas present in a conventional assembly.
A further need exists for a method and system for securing components that are usable in high torque situations, without experiencing upsets or reducing the life expectancy of the shaft or components.
A need also exists for a method and system usable to secure components to a stationary tubular housing member or to a rotatable tubular shaft within the housing, for selectively enabling certain components to rotate concurrent with the tubular shaft while maintaining other components in a stationary orientation concurrent with the tubular housing member.
The present embodiments meet these needs.